Ron Kind: “I thank my friend from Michigan for yielding. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the committee and as someone who has been…”

“I thank my friend from Michigan for yielding. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the committee and as someone who has been involved in the negotiations of the legislation before us, I rise in strong support of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act. The bill that we have before us today is not the bill that came out of the House in June. There are much-needed improvements. As we debate trade policy and where we are going in the 21st century global economy, we need strong enforcement mechanisms so that, when we get standards in these trade agreements that elevate it as being up to us to level the playing field for our workers, for our businesses, and for our farmers, we have the tools to ensure that those standards are enforced on an appropriate basis, so we are able to counter unfair trade practices as they are applied against us. That is exactly what is in this bill right now. This bill will end any importation of products that are made from the exploitation of child and forced labor, for instance. This bill also includes the ENFORCE Act, additional tools to enforce the provisions that we do negotiate in future trade agreements. This bill establishes the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center for greater coordination between our agencies in order to enforce provisions that we negotiate in trade agreements. It establishes an enforcement trust fund, which is due to the hard work my friend and colleague from Oregon (Mr.…”